I'm too cheap to buy this w/o knowing a little bit more about it. Anyone know anything or use it? I use a Behmor.

http://www.thinkfresher.com/#roast

Thanks for posting this- I'd also like to know more, especially what kind of information can be recorded for each roast. Just one temperature? If two temps could be recorded that would be great...

I asked a few questions using their website's 'feedback' function and told them about this post, hopefully we can get some more info.

Henry

At four bucks plus a bit for the governor's lunch money I figured it was worth a shot and bought it. I'll drop a note after I've installed it and had a chance to play with it. Might be handy. I'll usually playing a game or reading some news article on my iPhone while roasting while roasting anyway. Might as well put the phone to work on the roasts as well.

So i went ahead and downloaded the software after all, so between roger_s, myself and whatever feedback bhutchel we'll hopefully be able to give some sort list of first impressions.

Features
It has four tabs: Favorites, Beans, Roasts and Brews
Favorites: Automatically displays brews that you have given 4 stars or better.
Beans: Create a bean profile, only two "combinations": Origin (Preloaded: Bali, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Hawaii Kona, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Rwanda, Sumatra, Yemen - you can also add your own) and Bean size (a "sliding bar" from small to large)
Roasts: Give the Roast a name (i guess here is where you get more specific, e.g. Yirg, Oriente, Misty Valley). Choose a bean profile that you have already created in the previous "Beans" tab. Finally insert control points; temperature and duration. you have the option of several control point in one roast; e.g. 400* for 3 mins, then 300* for 12 mins, and so on. (It does not appear to be able to chart two different temps at the same time.) The profile is displayed as a graph.
Brews: Give it a Name, a rating up to 5 stars, select the roast, select the extraction method (Preloaded: Biggin, Cold Water Process, Drip, Espresso, French Press, Ibrik, Microwave Brewing, Moka Pot, Percolator, Vacuum Pot - you can also add your own methods, e.g. Chemex), select steep time, select grind size (again the sliding bar from small to large) and finally type in any tasting notes you might have.

MISSING: There is no "real time" features; timer and the ability to add in the times of first and second crack.

All in all it seems like an okay little program, but very basic. If these guys and the creator of Behmorthing got together it'd be pretty exciting. It is exciting to see software being developed for roasting and this is the first step which Think Fresher ought to be commended for.

All in all it seems like an okay little program, but very basic. If these guys and the creator of Behmorthing got together it'd be pretty exciting. It is exciting to see software being developed for roasting and this is the first step which Think Fresher ought to be commended for.

You really think there's enough people in the world using an iPhone and BehmorThing to make it worth my while to integrate with an iPhone? At this point BehmorThing is started between 150 and 200 times and and downloaded 40 or 50 times/week. I've no idea what that means, I just know because that's what the statistics report tells me about download on the version check file.

But from the amount of feedback I get, I'd have to assume no one is using it,

Ira
The guy who wrote BehmorThing

P.S. Would it really be an advantage if I added the ability to log a second or third temperature profile?

Ira - sorry for being so lazy that i didn't even find out who you were, rereading it now i see that "the creator of BehmorThing" wasn't in line with the friendly and personal spirit of this forum. I am sorry. All i meant was that at least for us Behmor users your software on the iPhone "platform" would be great (though apparently not realistic ), as well as the Roast App is a little lacking. It was also supposed to be a compliment to you/your program. As to second or third temp profiles it is not an issue for my needs, but i just thought i'd mention it as this App is not Behmor specific and i know that some people log several different temp. Just a FYI sort of thing

Another feature I noticed was missing in the Roast App was the ability to input batch size/weight.

I'll second kaffidrikker's opinion that it's an OK little program. I've not used it yet, just wandered around the menus and the like. The beans are by country of origin--no regions. Interesting that Kona is an option but Jamaica would need to be added manually.

Creating a roast is an interesting process. Time/Temp control points are entered that result in a step graph. Alas, the graph doesn't indicate the times or the temps. You must go to the Control Points page to view those. Setting up control points is a bit "fun". Time and temp values are entered via a set of "slot machine" wheels that you spin up and down to the get to the values you want. They're full-on wheels--thus you can have temps of 999 degrees and times of 20 minutes per step!

So, it has a few kinks. Nonetheless it looks useful--won't really know until I do my next roast session. I like that it's on the iPhone. It's nice to have a small computer handy even if the app is a tad awkward.

I'll post updates after I've actually used it. My initial verdict is it's not a waste of four bucks.

kaffidrikker wrote:Ira - sorry for being so lazy that i didn't even find out who you were

but i just thought i'd mention it as this App is not Behmor specific and i know that some people log several different temp. Just a FYI sort of thing

I promise I wasn't insulted that you don't know my name, that wasn't at all my point. And as tho the part abothe other program't not being Behmor specific, neither is Behmor thing any more, just go to preferences and tell it you don't have a Behmor and it does a good job of logging inventory and roasts and a passable job of keeping track of temperature profiles. Adding a second profile would be trivial in code. but a bit of work on a user interface. I should just finish the 3 channel thermocouple board that will interface directly to BT and log roasts with no effort at all. I've wondered if an iPhone App with just 4 buttons and a timer would be a useful add-on to BT, the 4 buttons being something like log temperature A or B and set the next log point up or down some user chosen or program chosen amount. Then I'd need a way to get it from the iPhone to BT. I can have my wife's old on to play with, but I don't have a Mac to develop on and I'm not sure there are enough users to bother. But the dialog is fun and might lead to improvements.

Ira

Ira - the Behmor roaster has just become available in the UK

I've been looking at BT and it will give me most of what I will need even down to the labels (nice touch).

One little point, I can cope with the $ sign, although I did mark £s in the prefs, but any chance of an option to convert temps from F to C?

Thanks anyway for a job well done

Oops, it was there as part of "I think metric" but then someone asked for grams and kilo and I guess it got forgotten in all the changes. I'll get right one it. Look for an update soon.

Ira